1. A more condensed version of the present
paper was delivered at the fifth meeting of the ICTM
Study Group on the Anthropology of Music in Mediterranean
Cultures hosted by the Levi Foundation in Venice in June
2001. The meeting had as its theme Trends and
Processes in Todays Mediterranean Music.

2. The
present paper does not attempt to offer a survey of the
full gamut of musical activity in Corsica during the
period under consideration. Interesting directions have
also been taken by a number of key individuals, including
Jean-Paul Poletti, Mighele Raffaelli, andToni and Nicole
Casalonga, Nando Acquaviva and others of the associof key
individuals, including Jean-Paul Poletti, Mighele
Raffaelli, and Toni and Nicole Casalonga, Nando Acquaviva
and others of the association E Voce di U Cumune.
Whilst reference is made in the course of my discussion
to aspects of their work, a detailed consideration of
their initiatives unfortunately lies beyond the scope of
the present study. For a fuller exploration of these and
other dimensions of the Corsican story I must direct the
reader to other publications, both past and yet to
come.

3.A
healthy demand for deleted titles has also
prompted the re-release of a number of
classic recordings. Only a small proportion
of the discs on sale in Corsica itself, however, find
their way onto the shelves of record stores outside the
island, although many can now be located via the
internet. Details of the various groups and their
recordings can be found at http:/www.corsica-isula.com/music.htm,
which also has links to many of the groups own
sites which usually carry downloadable sound files,
concert tour details etc. Other useful starting places
are http:/www.musicorsa.fr.st/
and http:/www.corsemusique.com.

4. Sermanu and Rusiu,
two small neighbouring villages in the Castagniccia
region, are widely revered as representing one of the
last strongholds of traditional Corsican musical
practices. In particular, the villages are noted for
their distinctive polyphonic settings of the mass and
other liturgical and paraliturgical texts which have been
preserved without a break in the oral tradition and are
still sung regularly by untrained village
singers.

5. Genres still current
in the grassroots oral tradition include the
polyphonic paghjella (examples of which are also
found in the repertoire of all of the groups mentioned in
this paper), the chjamí e rispondi(a
sung improvised debate which has similarities with the
Sardinian gara poetica and the Maltese spirtu
pront), and localized polyphonic settings of the
Latin mass and other liturgical and paraliturgical
material (examples of which can again be found in the
repertoire of many of the groups discussed). Examples of
the full range of traditional genres (taken in this case
from Wolfgang Laades field recordings of 1958 and
1973) can be found on the disc Corsica: Traditional Songs
and Music (see discography).

6. The marriage of
tradition and modernity continues
to be a central theme in the press reports describing
appearances by the various groups which feature almost
daily in the newspaper Corse-Matin. An item which
appeared on 8.8.01, for example, carried the title
Musivoce: entre tradition et modernitè, a
formula which reappeared in the 15.8.01 issue as Di
Maghju: entre tradition et modernitè.

7. The chanson style of
the 1970s developed largely as a vehicle for new songs by
Canta and other groups who aligned themselves to a
greater or lesser extent with the nationalist and
autonomist movements, composed in response to current
political developments and events in the
struggle. These songs came to be defined as cantu
indiatu, indiatu being equivalent to the
French engagé.

8.
The Pigna based association E Voce di u Cumune
again features prominently in investigations into
traditional instruments. In 1981 the association
published the book Etats des Recherches sur les
Instruments Traditionnels en Corse. A number of
craftspeople based in the village produce a range of
instruments which students can then learn to play at the
weekly workshops held at the Casa Musicale. Workshops are
also held at the university town of Corte in connection
with the Phonothèque of the Musée de la Corse (under
the direction of Bernardu Pazzoni). Mighele Raffaelli
(based in Bastia) is an accomplished performer on the cetera:
he can be heard using this and other instruments to
accompany the singing of Mighela Cesari on the disc
U Cantu Prufondu (amongst others).

9.
Each of the pieces discussed here includes both vocal
and instrumental lines. As noted above, the 1990s also
saw a significant output of a cappella polyphonic pieces,
with particularly interesting work by Mighele Raffaelli,
Nando Acquaviva and the groups A Filetta, Voce di
Corsica and Tavagna. This démarche
in itself offers sufficient interest to form the basis of
an entirely new article.

10.
One of the original members of Canta, Poletti has
played a prominent and very public role in musical
developments in Corsica over the past thirty years. In
addition to his career as an accomplished singer, he is
also a serious composer. Through the sum of his musical
activity he might be seen to bridge the gap between the
popular and the classical, the classical tendency also
informing his work with his choir Granitu Maggiore and
his Centre dArt Polyphonique, both of which have
grown out of his scola di cantu at Sartène. (He also
directs a separate male voice choir, with whom he has
recently toured as far afield as Hong-Kong, Iran and
Mexico.)

11. I have,
nonetheless, encountered on more than one occasion groups
of young singers who had listened assiduously to
recordings of new arrangements and compositions by groups
such as A Filetta and were able to reproduce the songs
impeccably. Others have learnt the material through
attending one or other of the singing schools
which are run by members of the different groups.

12.
The concept of nouvelles polyphonies or new
polyphonies is in itself suggestive of new
aesthetic.